Xora 2 - "Dangerous Game"

by Brandy Dewinter

 

Chapter 6 - "And Then There Was One"

We heard Darius before we saw him. He wuffed up the trail, deep breaths pulsing through his massive chest with steady rhythm.

Big pile of muscle needs to work on his conditioning a little, I observed to Titania.

"Actually, he’s in very good shape," she said. "We are almost 2000 meters higher than the swamp and he’s made very good time. You are beginning to take my contribution for granted."

She may have been right. I was hardly one to complain about conditioning, considering what I had done - or not done - with my previous body. Before I could respond, Darius rounded a corner and came into view.

There was nothing wrong with his reflexes. The weapon he had carried all the way was leveled in my direction before I realize he was pointing it. Then the muzzle raised nearly as quickly when he recognized me.

"So, you decided to take a break after all," he said. I gave him a silent credit point for keeping any trace of smugness out of his voice.

"Just waiting for you," I said. And took away a credit point from myself because of the smirk I knew was on my face.

He gave me a grudging nod of respect, then leaned against the rocky wall that defined the trail.

Taking advantage of the pause, or making an excuse for one, he said, "I never asked. What happened to you at the reception?"

"Sstton hit me with a Romulan stunner."

Darius nodded, still pumping air in and out of all that chest. "He has always advocated lifting the technology restrictions. At least, under certain conditions that he claimed wouldn’t totally undermine the economy. Now that I think of them, though, he and his interests would have benefited the most. Mining technology, for example, but not transportation technology. I suppose that was another sign that he wasn’t as noble as he tried to appear. Having contraband weapons is not much of a surprise - in hindsight."

"How did he get you?" I asked in turn.

His voice was commendably steady after only that few moments of rest when he explained, "I found that the mix of chemicals in that mud matched the soil samples Sstton had submitted with his latest mineral claim. I was stupid and assumed it was one of his men rather than him. You’d think a man of his power would see how much he had to lose if he gave in to these sadistic impulses. Anyway, I came out to the ranch to ask him if he might know whether any of his men were acting suspiciously. When I got there, I saw that woman in the clearing and started toward her. That’s the last I remember until I woke up tied to that chair."

"Sstton was there," Darius continued. "He told me all about his little hunts. He actually offered me a chance to join him! When I told him what to do with that offer, he told me he would be back after capturing you."

"Is that when he told you about my communicator?" I asked.

Darius nodded. He straightened and said, "I think I should lead now. It wouldn’t do for you to stumble onto Sstton and his men."

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. So sue me. "I’ve already ‘stumbled’ onto his camp, about 4 klicks toward that saddle you told me about. They were taking a break and intend to sweep back this way. I came back to make sure *you* don’t get caught."

My laugh was admittedly impolite. Darius frowned and was about to say something, but then this tone showed more disgust than anger as he said, "You seem to have gotten over your sorrow for Kannda Lanney pretty quickly."

He was right. And I hadn’t even noticed. *Titania!* I shouted internally.

Her response was subdued, even meek, but I didn’t hear any tones of apology. "You were too angry to think straight. If I had left that emotion in control of you, then you really would have blundered right into Sstton’s arms."

She was probably right, too. But that didn’t mean I had to like it.

*Damnit, Ti, you have *got* to stop manipulating me like that!*

"Then you stop acting like an adolescent and demonstrate the control I have been forced to provide."

Maybe I should have had that argument out, once and for all, right there, but as so often seemed to be the case there just wasn’t time. Instead, I still had to find some reasonable response to Darius’ observation - without revealing my hidden, would-be puppetmaster.

"Oh, I’m still sad, and angry, and determined," I began. "But I don’t have the luxury of wallowing in self-destructive emotions right now. The time will come, and the destruction will not be of myself when I let my controls relax."

"Deal," Titania said within my mind.

Darius nodded once again, respect back in his eyes. He straightened even further, almost to a position of attention, and said, "I owe you an apology. I must admit I could see only your beauty and your grace, and assumed you were as soft as our own women of comparable appearance. I see now that you are physically my better, with even more strength of character. The reputation of Federation field agents, far from being exaggerated, does not do you justice. I’m sorry for my attitude."

Now why did he have to go and get sweet all of the sudden? I felt a blush light my cheeks and I almost wished I had told Ti to keep my emotions under her direct control. His dark, deep eyes met mine without wavering, fully accepting the rightness of his apology, which poured even more fuel on the fires of my guilt. Without Titania, I wouldn’t have done justice to the reputation of a potato.

"Don’t overreact, dear," Ti whispered in my ear. "We are one, now. Old distinctions are unimportant. Right now, you *do* have the endurance and the self-control that he is praising. Don’t worry about the source."

I nodded, as much to her as to Darius, and said, "Well, um, my training is sort of special, even by Federation field agent standards. And I’m better at endurance than strength or speed. Apologies are neither necessary nor appropriate between partners. Can we just go forward without looking back?"

Darius nodded, then sent a shiver up my spine that had nothing to do with Titania when he reached out and took my gloved hand, pressing it briefly to his lips. "You are a lady as well as a capable agent."

"Huh?" I stammered, still feeling a strange sense of pressure on my fingers. Not to mention echoes of that shiver that had raced through my body. "Oh, well, thank you. Um, maybe we should be getting on?"

"What do you suggest?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," I said, thinking furiously. "Um, well, how easily can Sstton just escape? Can we run him to ground like the prey he considers women to be?"

"Hmm, an interesting idea," Darius said. "I’m sure he could call for help, but I also think that his arrogance would prevent it until perhaps too late. What do you have in mind?"

"Well, if we take out his men without a pitched battle, leaving only him, then we can give him a taste of his own medicine."

"So, you’re not particularly interested in just bringing him to justice," Darius observed with a grin that I *never* wanted to be directed at me.

"Oh, I’d be glad to capture him. Eventually," I said, letting the fire of my anger show briefly in my eyes.

Darius nodded, looking up at the higher reaches of the pass, considering strategies. I interrupted his thoughts with another question.

"Do I remember that weapons like those make a lot of noise?"

He nodded.

"Then I suppose I should be the one to take out a few of Sstton’s men," I observed.

"Pretty lady," Darius said, that feral grin still in place. "I don’t need this weapon against single men in the woods."

I believed him. Besides, he thought I was pretty.

"What do *you* think we should do?" I asked, forgetting that the call girl reflexes triggered whenever I thought of myself as pretty. The offer in my voice was *not* what I intended.

"Are you sure?" Titania asked with a smirky little grin lurking in her tones.

*Quiet,* I ordered, but I knew the blush was back on my face.

Darius noticed. And I noticed that he noticed. But all he said was, "Uh, well, I, um, I assume you feel you can handle some of the men yourself?"

This time it was my turn just to nod.

"Then let’s get off this narrow part of the trail and spread out to the flanks of however Sstton’s men are deployed. We can work our way inward to the center."

"Very well," I agreed.

"Oh, and Commander Xora?" Darius said.

I raised a single arched brow at him, then he said, "These men, by virtue of being participants in rape and murder, are facing the death penalty already. Be careful, for they know that. But also, well, don’t worry overmuch about thoughts of mercy for them. In other words, I can assure you as a representative of our Planetary Council, that you don’t need to worry about how much you hurt any of them."

"I wasn’t planning to worry about it," I said flatly, once again reminded of what they had intended for me.

He nodded and we moved up the trail. By now he had fully recovered his breath and once again I was surprised at how silently he could move, despite his bulk. He was slower than I was, mostly because he was so large he had to patiently move through brush I could slip by, but in all other ways he was as quiet as the boulders we passed.

After a short hike, we heard the sound of Sstton’s men actively beating the brush to drive their prey into the open. Darius caught my hand up once again, brushing it lightly with his lips before shining a smile of encouragement on me. Quite a nice smile, actually, with bright highlights dancing through the depths of his eyes.

"Pay attention!" Titania commanded.

*Huh?* I responded eloquently. By the time I realized what she meant, Darius had slipped into the shaded woods and out of sight.

I turned toward my own end of the oncoming line, moving with equal stealth thanks to Ti’s magic.

"Although," she mused within my ear, "after this is over, I wouldn’t mind trying to spark that smile again."

"Oh, Titty, you have a one-track mind," I said, trying to laugh to cover my own fascination with that idea.

"I told you not to call me that," she snapped, but her own giggle was too close to the surface to deny. "And I’m not the one who was making lascivious offers."

*Lascivious? I am *never* lascivious!* I claimed.

"Oh, big boy, what would you *like* to do with my soft, quivering body?" Titania purred in my ear, her tones so close to those that I had found myself using with Darius that I could not deny the relevance.

*That was just my call-girl reflexes,* I claimed.

"Right," Titania replied. Somehow her tone didn’t seem sincere.

"Those reflexes are going to have you on your back with that man."

I snorted in a very unladylike way. *Not in *this* lifetime.*

"Want to bet?" she asked and I wondered what she had in mind to use for stakes.

Before we had to decide, we reached the end of the line of men. Titania made some handy hooks on my fingers and toes and I quickly climbed a tree. The closest man turned out to be one I knew, at least by name. It was the "Jole" who had brought the dog-beasts to sniff my hair. I could hear the dogs off somewhere in the middle of the line, so I figured this wasn’t the one whom I had labeled as the head tracker.

I don’t suppose we should just kill him without warning, I thought, more to myself than Ti.

"Not if you want there to be any difference between you and him," Ti answered, hitting the point squarely.

We compromised by retracting my spike heels and dropping feet first on his shoulders. The impact drove his face into the dank floor of the forest, which was still a lot harder than his nose and his chin. Tough, he was already ugly. The man had a bit of rope in his belt, probably intended for me once I was caught. It served as well for the would-be captor as it would have on me.

"Better actually," Ti said with a grin I could hear in her voice.

"I’d have had that cut before he finished tying the knots."

"Yes, you would at that," I said, then started after the next guy in line.

I had to hurry a bit after him. The line had moved past me and despite Ti’s retraction of my tall heels, my shortened tendons prevented me from taking long strides. I still had to be silent, too, while the man I was pursuing was trying to make as much noise as possible. His noise and my hurry must have made me a bit overconfident, because I heard a sharp snap from under my foot just as I reached my quarry.

All that did was add the impetus of his turning head to the impact of my hardened fist. He’d be eating through a straw for a while.

As I remembered the number of men with Sstton, that should deal with the outliers on my side of the sweep line, assuming that Sstton and the head tracker stayed together in the middle. That was good news and bad news. The good news was, of course, that I was making progress. The bad news was that the beaters on my side of the line were no longer making any noise.

I hurried to tie up this second man, but it still took too long. There was a crashing sound from the brush and I looked to see the two almost-dogs leaping at me, all teeth and anger.

There wasn’t time for any conscious commands, but two feet of sharp-edged blade grew from my right hand between one heartbeat and the next, while plates stiffened into existence at my neck and my forearms. The first dog impaled my sword-arm so fiercely that his teeth reached my throat even though his heart was destroyed. The armor that Ti had provided kept me from any harm, but the weight of the beast still knocked me down.

The second one had my other arm by that time, and I needed the strength Titania provided at the shoulder joint as much as the hardness at my wrist, for the dog would surely have pulled my arm from the socket without her protection. At some level I was aware of a sharp point drilling down into the second dog’s throat from within his mouth where he still held my arm.

In seconds, both dogs were still, but both jaws were still locked onto me, pinning me to the ground with a combined weight that was surely greater than my own.

Then I heard that metallic snik-clack that Darius’ weapon had made.

Unfortunately, this was not Darius.

"You killed my dogs, you damn wench!" the man who I thought was the head tracker yelled.

From under the pile of animals that held me, I saw the muzzle of his weapon track around into line with my eyes.

"Ti!" I screamed.

She was too busy to answer, but I felt her concern even as my view of the tracker distorted as she thickened herself where the weapon was aimed. Would her protection be enough? Soon enough?

The roar of the cannon-thing made me jump, even under the weight that still held me down. But an instant later Ti reported, "No damage. Anywhere. Did he miss?"

I tried to see the man through the distortion, to see what had kept him from slamming us with the projectile the Teton weapons fired. All I could perceive was a vague shape - a shape that slowly collapsed to the floor of the forest.

"Are you all right?" I heard another voice ask; the most wonderful voice I had ever heard. Darius.

"Uh, yeah, except I can’t get these beasts off of me," I grunted.

Even as Ti was clearing up my sight again, and withdrawing the blades that had killed the dog-things, I felt a heavy rap on the locked jaw of the one on my wrist. And then another. It took a half a dozen hammering blows from the stock of Darius’ weapon before the dog’s jaw released its hold on my arm. By then, Ti had gotten the other one off our throat; an easier job since the thing’s teeth had never penetrated through her protective armor and it wasn’t - quite - big enough to have gotten its teeth clear around my neck.

The gore from the beasts had drenched me, leaving a mess almost as bad as the night in the swamp, but that didn’t prevent Darius from surrounding me with his huge, powerful arms as he lifted me up in a deliciously-delicate squeeze. It ended up with my face close to his. Very close.

It was his smile that did it.

That smile, the one that started in his eyes and added sparkling highlights to their deep darkness, now with pride as well as respect mixed into something much more important even than those; you know the one.

I found myself kissing him, and being kissed, and losing myself in a spiral that swept me up even as I felt like I was plummeting into measureless depth.

*Oh, Titty, I can’t breathe,* I cried to my silent partner.

"Quiet," she said to me. "I’m taking notes. Would you say that Darius is more or less passionate than Eryx?"

*How can you think of anyone else at a time like this?* I thought, my mind reeling already from the shocks of the last few moments.

"Hmmm, good point," she said, still sounding analytical, but I could feel her own interest was more than objective.

Darius interrupted our intensely-stupid discussion when he gently eased me back to my feet. He still held me in his arms, but he pulled back far enough to look at my eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Some people say I’m better than just, ‘okay’," I claimed, smiling to show him that indeed I was just fine.

He blushed. Or, at least I think it was a blush. With his beard, and the dog-beast blood and whatever that now coated him as thoroughly as it coated me it was hard to tell.

My comment had the unintended consequence of causing him to drop his arms and step back. He looked at the mess that was all over both of us and said, "I was afraid you were dead."

"No, thanks to you," I said.

"You seem to have taken care of yourself very well," he replied, looking at the dead animals.

"Not well enough," I said. "I think this guy was about to shoot me."

"Yes, that’s what I thought, too." Darius said. "I saw him aiming at you and just snapped off a quick shot. Luckily, it hit him."

"Why do I think luck had little to do with it?" I asked softly.

"Hmmm? Oh, um, well, I just did what was needed," he replied.

"So," I asked, moving to the main issue, "how did you handle Sstton?"

"Sstton?" Darius said in confusion. "Oh, he must have gotten away!"

"You let him get away?" I asked sharply.

Darius nodded. "I saw the tracker guy let the dogs loose, and they headed over this way. I thought they were on your trail or something, so I came, too."

"They couldn’t have tracked us," Titania insisted.

*Maybe they were just told to come after this other guy,* I said, pointing at my most recent captive. *In any event, they found us.*

"Well," I said to Darius. "I can hardly complain about your sense of priorities. We’ll just have to catch him."

With that comment, Darius led me back to the last place he had seen Sstton. The only sign that Sstton had been there was a sack on the ground. I moved quickly to the bag and found within it my combadge.

"Ah, that changes things," he said. "You can stay here and call for someone to take charge of the prisoners while I pursue Sstton."

Instead of talking to him, I tapped my communicator and said, "Commander Xora to Teton Central Control."

There was a bit of delay as the signal was routed through my runabout and rebroadcast to the ground, then another for the return message.

"Teton Central Control, go ahead," the voice said.

"My computer will give you our location. Inspector Darius of your, um, Council Investigation Organization . . . "

Darius interrupted me, saying, "Administration, just tell him I’m with the CIA."

"Of your CIA has several prisoners from a kidnap and rape ring headed by your Kommissar Sstton. You need to send help."

While the voice on the other end was trying to absorb that information, Titania whispered from within my ear, "You’re no better than I am."

*What?*

"You’re no better than I am. You decided what needed to be done, and without a word of discussion with Darius, just went ahead. How is that different than when I help you past destructive emotions without asking?"

*It’s not the same thing at all,* I said. Her silence showed that she was not convinced. Well, maybe my words weren’t all that convincing, but it *was* different.

Somehow.

Anyway, before I had to explain, Teton Central Control spoke again, "Very well, help is one the way. Are you and Inspector Darius all right?"

"We’re fine," I assured him. "It’s just that we can’t guard our prisoners and continue with our task at the same time."

"Very well, tell Inspector Darius that the ready squad should be at your location within an hour."

"Thank you. Commander Xora, out."

"There, that takes care of that," I said to Darius. "I’ll go after Sstton. When you finish handing over the prisoners, you can follow."

"No," he said, "you should wait here and I’ll go after him."

I figured he would say that. Now, why was he wrong? In the end, I didn’t have a logical reason, so I used the real one.

"Look, Darius, this is more than just duty to me. I promised Kannda that I would not let her die. But I did. Let her die. I need to redeem myself in the only way I can. Please, let me go after him now."

The big man looked down at me. Then, without a word, he held his cannon, or whatever the thing was called, out to me.

"No thank you, but thank you," I said, confusedly perhaps but he knew what I meant.

I suppose it was because he was being sweet again, but I couldn’t just walk away. I stepped close to him and gave him a quick hug.

Well, it started out quickly.

"Take care of yourself," he said softly, a long, sweet moment later.

I just nodded. And stood there, trying to remember how to breathe.

He smiled again, with all the pride and respect, but a little-boy grin lurking in there somewhere as well. "The reputation of Federation field agents grossly understates the reality," he said.

"Oh, and which reputation would that be?" I purred.

"I’ll have to let you know later, if you intend to catch our bad guy," he replied.

"Oh. Oh! Uh, yes. I’ll get right after him," I said, stepping back in surprise. How had I ended up like that?

Titania chuckled, "You know very well how you ended up like that.

You were there the whole time."

*Quiet,* I said. But I knew she was right. And I knew I remembered every single millisecond of what had happened.

With a final, almost shy wave, I turned to the track left by Sstton and was quickly out of sight in the dim woods.

 

(continued in part 7)

 

 

*********************************************
© 1999 by Brandy Dewinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.